


Does It Count As Friendly Fire

by Jinxie_1394



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Fake AH Crew, Gen, I'm Bad At Tagging, I'm Sorry, Immortal Fake AH Crew, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-04 07:43:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12766311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinxie_1394/pseuds/Jinxie_1394
Summary: 'Does it count as friendly fire?''What the fuck are you talking about, Gavin?''Does it still count as friendly fire if I let you kill me?'





	Does It Count As Friendly Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, okay I just wanted to write a short fic about Ryan killing Gavin, just because, and I ended up with this and a questionable google search history instead. Enjoy.
> 
> Comments and kudos is appreciated, I'm only posting because my waifu demanded it.

**Does It Count As Friendly Fire**

There are a lot of things to learn, when you’re an Immortal. One of the earlier lessons that the Vagabond learnt was how to be alone. Never aging, never being allowed to die, watching everyone you care about pass on..... Companionship wasn’t worth it. Life became devalued. The obvious choice in the end was killing. What does it matter if you get shot in a gun fight if a few minutes later you’re good as new and back on your feet? Pain was the one constant, and after the first few deaths it wasn’t that bad.

The first time he died, he was burnt alive for witchcraft. Not aging back in those days of small towns and superstitious townsfolk had that side effect. That was the most memorable time for the Vagabond, the shock of waking up on his bed like it was just a bad dream, heading out to the town square and finding the people he had known all his life clearing up the remains of the fire and stake he had been tied to, and then promptly chased out of town by a terrified mob. Simpler times.

Eventually he even forgot his old name, having chosen to go by the name he was given for so long, the vagrant, the wanderer, the Vagabond. It seemed appropriate, the word for someone without a home. He became a mercenary in the end because after all, who cares if you die a few times, as long as the job gets done. It was a couple of centuries later when he found himself in Los Santos for a job when he met Geoff Ramsey.

It had been pretty standard, a few weeks of observation and then go in and take him out. The client was anonymous, but that wasn’t unusual for the Vagabond. As long as the money was in his account, he didn’t ask questions about who or why. It was the middle of the night when he slipped into Geoff's lavish penthouse, only to have the lights flick on and to find the Kingpin awake and waiting for him.

'Let's have a chat,' had been the opening line, and when you’re invited to sit at the point of a gun it tends to peak your interest. Not like any damage would be permanent. Of course as Geoff had talked, glass of whiskey in one hand and shotgun in the other, the Vagabond found that Geoff had been the anonymous client who ordered his own assassination, just so he could set up a face to face meeting with the guy. Ballsy. Geoff explained he was looking for another member to add to his crew, and the Vagabond was the guy for the job since he only accepted immortals.

It was shocking to find there were more like him, though he never let the surprise reach his eyes. Not just one more immortal, but five. All together in the major crew of Los Santos. Who would have known. As he stood and shook Ramsey's hand and gave his 'normal' name Ryan Haywood along with the documentation to go with it, the newly minted member of the Fake AH Crew figured he would have to learn how to work in a team again.

~~~

'Does it count as friendly fire?'

'What the fuck are you talking about, Gavin?'

Ryan was speeding through the streets of Los Santos on his bike, avoiding the police who were after the two for mini gunning a rival crime boss who had been pissing Geoff off and causing a nuisance in the city. Of course Ryan could have handled it himself, but Gavin insisted he come because he wanted a break from his computer screen.

'Does it still count as friendly fire if I let you kill me?' The Brit was on the back of the bike, scootched right up behind Ryan and unconcerned about the bullets whizzing by, occasionally reaching back to shoot at the cops who were losing ground on the speeding pair as they wove through the oblivious drivers.

'I think it depends on how he kills you,' came a woman’s voice from their earpieces.

'Why would that make a difference? Friendly fire just means you killed a teammate, don’t it?'

'Typically it only gets used in a gunfight scenario. And if you told him to do it, it would probably fall under assisted suicide rather than friendly fire,' Jack replied, the only one aside from Ryan who ever tended to try and reason with Gavin on his ridiculous hypothetical questions. Everyone else had enough sense to just call him an idiot and tell him to shut up.

‘Wot? Assisted suicide? Are you mental Jack? It’s not like I’m actually going to kick the bucket, am I?'

'Oh yeah, I’m sorry, I got a bit confused by the whole 'asking Ryan to kill you' thing, that’s clearly not you killing yourself using Ryan, my mistake.' The sarcasm was practically tangible through the secure com line.

Ryan hadn’t heard any of the argument past Gavin asking if Ryan would kill him. Now that little innocuous statement was glued into the forefront of his mind as he dodged through the traffic on autopilot, getting away from the police and back to safety. It kept going around his head as he dropped the hacker off and went home, putting his gun away and getting in his shower to clean off any evidence of the day.

What would it be like to kill Gavin?

~~~

'How would you ask me to do it?'

Gavin slid his gold rimmed glasses up to the top of his head and looked up from his laptop, the screen covered with some kind of complicated series of windows and files, obviously busy doing something indecipherable. Ryan was staring at him with the same weird intensity he got when eyeing a target down through his scope. It didn’t help that he had apparently just taken his mask off, that creepy face paint he always coated on slightly smeared, making the staring worse.

'How would I ask you to do what?'

'The other day you said would it count as friendly fire if you asked me to kill you. How would you ask me to kill you?' Ryan didn’t move, eyes still glued to Gavin's.

Gavin shifted a little uncomfortably. 'Oh. Uhh. I dunno. I guess if you’re doing me a favour I’d let you pick.'

Ryan was silent for a long moment. '.......You'd let me choose how to kill you. Really? I'm pretty sure you know how imaginative I can be with killing.'

Swallowing a bit, Gavin nodded. 'Well yeah, but you’re doing me a favour, so fair's fair.'

'So you’d let me shove a butter knife through your neck and watch you choke out on your own blood?'

'...I guess if that’s how you wanted to do it...'

‘You’d let me cut open your stomach and pull out your organs one by one until you died of blood loss or shock?'

'Well I mean-'

'Would you let me force a tube down your throat, fill your stomach with gasoline and then light it?'

'Jesus Christ Ryan-!' Gavin was starting to look a little green at this point.

'I could do what I did to that guy, you remember, when I used that plastic coaster-'

'Ryan!' Gavin was on his feet, laptop abandoned on the desk. 'Shut up before you make me vomit, you psycho!' He gagged as if to prove his point, still looking queasy.

Ryan immediately went quiet, dropping his enthusiasm, not moving while Gavin calmed himself down and settled back in his chair. He watched the Brit turn back to his screen and type a few things before breaking his silence.

'So how would you ask me to do it?'

Gavin sighed, leaning back in his chair, eyeing Ryan through his shades for a long moment. '...I'd still let you pick.' The hacker glued his eyes to the laptop screen again, so he didn’t see the almost evil looking glint that flashed in Ryan's eyes.

'...That’s good to know, Gavin. Thank you for trusting me with something like that.'

'Ryan, you’re the only one I’d let murder me on purpose.'

‘You’re so romantic.'

'Oh fuck off!'

~~~

It was quiet in Geoff's apartment for once. The unofficial headquarters of the Fake AH Crew was almost empty; Geoff and Michael off doing something that involved the AH-mobile, a large bottle of whiskey, lots of sticky bombs and the Lost; Ray had gone home to fight his next pokemon gym battle ('That Miltank is OP as fuck') ; and Jack had just simply had enough and gone out to have some fun. The only one still around was Gavin, and he had been quiet since Geoff set him an intel gathering job this morning.

'Have you decided yet?' So much for that peace and quiet.

Ryan glanced up from the grenade launcher he was maintaining, just managing not to drop the piece he was holding as Gavin flopped unceremoniously beside him on the living room couch. 'Have I decided what?' he replied, knowing full well what the annoyingly murderable Brit was talking about.

‘Don’t be a bastard, Ryan. You know what I’m talking about. How would you murder me?' Gavin grinned, apparently having got over his squeamishness.

Sighing, Ryan sat back, giving Gavin an unamused stare. 'Unless you’re going to actually let me kill you, it doesn’t matter, does it?'

'But I want to know!'

'Then let me kill you.' Gavin fell silent at that and Ryan turned back to the grenade launcher, assuming the topic of conversation was done with. Geoff had really managed to fuck one of his favourite weapons up somehow. He unscrewed a panel to get a better look at the launch mechanism.

'Alright then.'

The response was so quiet that Ryan almost missed it, immediately stopping his tinkering. He paused for a moment before nodding and standing. ‘Let’s go.'

He walked out, not stopping to check if Gavin was following him, knowing that he would be. Heading into Geoff's garage where he'd stored his bike out of sight, he hopped on and waited for Gavin, who scooted on behind him a moment later, hugging up close to his back. Ryan couldn’t suppress a shiver that ran up his spine at knowing the chest pressing up against him would soon be at his complete mercy.

It was a long and quiet ride to his home, especially with Ryan taking the long way round through side streets and looping back on himself. None of the crew had been to his home or even knew where it was, and he intended to keep it that way. Gavin would likely be too disoriented after dying to remember exactly where Ryan's home was, as the youngest Immortal of the crew. Dying takes some getting used to, of course.

He rolled into his garage and led an unusually silent Gavin through to his apartment. He tossed off his mask and shrugged off his jacket, hanging both up on hooks near the door. 'Make yourself at home.'

Looking around curiously as he walked in, Gavin noticed the place was neat, and even bordering on empty. Nothing like his own apartment which was filled with all kinds of knick knacks and random bits of tech, only half of which worked. But this place made sense considering Ryan spent most of his time in the Geoff's apartment with everyone else, pulling a shift for the crew, or off doing something unspeakable in another city. Something unspeakable that he would soon be doing to Gavin.

There was no warning as a sweet smelling cloth was suddenly clamped over his nose and mouth. The hacker squawked and flailed as the cloying scent filled his senses, limbs quickly losing strength and going limp, his vision swimming before going black as he lost consciousness.

Ryan set the Brit on the couch where he slumped to the side, definitely out of it. Putting away the small flask of chloroform in his jacket pocket (never know when it’ll come in handy), he smiled to himself as he walked into the kitchen to rinse out the now damp rag. He had time, there was no need to rush. Now was the fun part.

~~~

Gavin groaned, shifting groggily as he swam to the surface of consciousness. He tried to wet his lips only to find that his jaw was held open by something hard and plastic. Cracking open an eye, he realised he was strapped to a padded table and all his clothes were gone save for his boxers (thankfully not his rubber ducky pair).

'Oh good, you’re awake.' Blinking hard, Gavin forced his eyesight to come into full focus, spotting Ryan leaning against the wall of the room, arms folded over his chest, face paint still on and hair still pulled back into his neat ponytail, like he hadn’t just chloroformed a crew member and strapped them to his murder bench.

'I hope you’re comfortable there. It isn’t usually a main concern of mine when I bring someone back home for the night.' Gavin gargled something at him. 'Hmm? Oh, the mouth gag. I like to get feedback as I work, it makes everything a lot less monotonous. There’s nothing quite as unsatisfying as a muffled scream, don't you agree?'

He chuckled as Gavin tried to gargle something more coherent and failed. ‘Don’t worry, this room is sound proofed. I wouldn’t want any concerned neighbours to turn up. I only have the one table,' Ryan quipped as he went to his workbench, picking up a few tools and examining them before setting them back down.

'It's such a lovely opportunity you've gifted me, Gavin. I hardly ever get to do this sort of thing any more now I’m with the Crew, and as much as I enjoy our time together, it’s not the same as getting to do this. Let alone with such a willing volunteer, and one that can give me feedback afterwards no less,' he said, smiling.

'So I want to make this last as long as possible. But Geoff would likely find a way to kill me if I permanently traumatised his favourite hacker, so I’m giving you one last opportunity to pass on this. Nod if you want to stay. Shake your head if you want to go. It's as simple as that.'

Gavin was silent for a moment before nodding, shuddering at the wide grin that seemed to split Ryan's face.

'Good to know. Let's get started, shall we?' he asked, certainly not expecting an answer, picking up a straight razor and turning it in his hand. He was going to enjoy this very much.

Holding down Gavin's right knee with a strong hand, he pressed the straight razor into the Brit’s leg, slitting up the bone, ignoring the jerking of the body under him and the pained gargle. Making neat precise cuts into the skin, Ryan carefully flayed away the skin from the muscles underneath, watching them twitch and tremble as the raw flesh was slowly exposed to the air.

'Lovely,' he murmured, glancing up at Gavin's face which was already tear streaked, chest rising and falling quickly as he panted, pained sounds escaping his forced open mouth. 'Huh. You’re pretty sensitive, aren't you?'

Gavin narrowed his eyes at that and gargled something indignant through the gag, making Ryan chuckle. 'Don't worry, I'll knock that fight out of you. Temporarily, of course.' Wiping the blade off on a towel, he moved around the table and began the process again on Gavin's left leg, carefully taking off the skin, practically purring at the successively louder wails and retching from the restrained hacker.

'You have nice legs Gavin, has anyone ever told you that? Underneath all the hair, of course. You're amazingly hairy for someone as effeminate as yourself. I suppose waxing and shaving wouldn’t seem quite as uncomfortable now you’ve had your skin flayed off,' Ryan said, mostly to himself. He didn’t normally talk so much to people strapped to his table, but of course he hadn’t ever had a teammate in that position.

Humming to himself as he worked, Ryan carefully cut away and peeled back all the skin between Gavin's ankles and knees before moving up and doing the same between his wrists and elbows, watching with fascination as the tendons tensed and slackened, nimble fingers twitching and flexing as the hacker tries to cope with the pain of so much raw exposed muscle.

‘You’re doing well. Most people have passed out by this point. Though of course I’m working with a lot more care and consideration for you than someone Geoff wants information out of. It’s a lot more effort, but you do these things for your teammates, right?' Wiping off his blade and setting it to the side, Ryan picked up a scalpel, twirling it easily.

'Now, you’re wiggling a lot, so what I’m going to do now is just.... make it easier to keep you still. Pretty simple, really. And not permanent for you, so that’s a bonus,' he murmured, taking Gavin's right hand and pressing it flat on the table, palm side up. Watching for a moment as the fingers tried to wiggle free, he pressed the scalpel into the wrist a few times, pressing a gauze over the small wounds, smiling as the hand in his stopped moving and Gavin let out a startled squawk.

'That was your flexor tendon. It allows you to curl your fingers.' He quickly repeated the process over the back of Gavin's hand, small precise cuts. 'They are your extensor tendons. They let you straighten your fingers. Interesting, huh?'

Gavin made a strangled noise, the fact he couldn’t move his hand more distressing to him than the loss of a good portion of his skin. Ryan smiled, shifting around to the left hand and doing the same, enjoying the heady sound of panicked sobs as Gavin tried and failed to move his now useless hands. Trailing the blade down the exposed muscle tissue of the forearms, Ryan shifted his focus towards the elbows. Examining the twisting and twitching for a few moments, he sliced into the elbow, the rest of the arm going limp, the severed muscle balling up near Gavin's armpit, a loud wail coming from the Brit.

'This is the distal biceps tendon. Severing it doesn’t immobilise the arm, but it does severely weaken it, and it makes my job a lot easier. The body sure is fascinating. A few small slices and the entire ability to do your job with the crew is gone. Also severing this tendon can be very painful, so that's a bonus.' Walking around the table, in no rush at all, Ryan cut through the matching tendon on the right side. He had all the time in the world, and he intended to enjoy every moment of it. He uncuffed Gavin's now mostly useless arms, folding one over his chest and rolling him to his side slightly.

'Now, these tendons keep the humerus attached to your shoulder blade. They control the general movement of the arm. Supraspinatus. Subscapularis. Infraspinatus. And teres minor.'

With each name, he sliced through the flesh, easy enough to find the correct areas since Gavin was skinny as a rake. Whistling merrily, he shifted Gavin and rolled him to the other side, repeating the names and the cuts over the left shoulder. Ryan certainly wasn’t as detail oriented in his personal space as Michael, but he did take a certain pride in keeping certain aspects of his work like this as neat and symmetrical as possible. Walking around slowly, he trailed the blade down Gavin's side, along the leg and rested on the ankle.

'Now, the one that everyone knows, the Achilles tendon,' he said, pressing a firm finger just above the left ankle, making the foot twitch and flex. 'As everyone is aware, you sever this and you cripple someone’s ability to walk.'

A quick cut and Gavin's foot went limp. Again Ryan repeated the process for the other tendon, glancing up to his victim's face as he was met with silence, frowning when he saw the Brit had his eyes screwed shut and his jaw tightly clenched around the mouth gag.

'Am I boring? Is this not exciting enough for you? I’m sorry. I know you have a short attention span. I’m just trying to give you an anatomy lesson, something useful you could use after you’re finished being dead. But you really should at least watch what I’m doing for you. It's only polite.'

He frowned again when Gavin didn’t open his eyes. 'I'll finish up here then. I'll be quick, I promise.'

Getting to work, Ryan kept his promise and sliced through the series of tendons in the lanky British man’s legs, effectively immobilising him, humming absently. 'Since you didn’t like learning about tendons, what about organs? Biology is important to understand. Makes it easier to know what will kill a person, and what will leave them alive to suffer,' Ryan patted Gavin's cheek gently, smiling. 'Of course, for you it isn’t entirely about the suffering, at least not to me. I don’t know how much of a masochist you are.'

He stepped away for a moment, out of sight should Gavin decide to open his eyes, which he didn’t. Finding a new knife, he checked it for sharpness, making sure not to slice his own fingers in the process, pressing it into Gavin’s stomach and slicing down it in a deep, clean cut. Ryan practically purred as the room filled with a pained wail.

'Now now, Gavin. I’m opening up to you by doing this, the least you can do is open up to me in return,' Ryan admonished, slicing back the skin and peeling it away to expose the organs quivering in the abdomen.

'Do I need to cut off your eyelids to get you to pay attention?' He smiled as Gavin immediately snapped his eyes open, staring at Ryan. The Brit was pale and shaking, a sheen of sweat covering his face. This would normally be the part where he gave a victim time to recover and heal somewhat, but he had no intention of keeping Gavin that long. Geoff might notice if they were gone for a few days.

'Back to our biology lesson,' he said, pointing at Gavin’s guts with his knife. 'This is the small intestine, where most of your water is absorbed. Following on is the large intestine, where nutrients are absorbed and water can be added back in. Now of course a wound that pierces the intestines can be very dangerous, because if the initial injury doesn’t kill you, infection certainly can. A gruesome way to go.'

Ryan's tone was conversational, even friendly, almost like he was actually giving a lecture in a class. Although a high school biology teacher didn’t usually pause to string out your guts. Ryan looked back at Gavin when he whimpered, smiling when he found the Brit's eyes glued to the strings of intestines currently being carefully removed, apparently in too much pain to even gag at the gory sight.

'I don’t want the mess, so I won’t cut them out, just shifting them for better access,' Ryan explained, piling the glistening mass next to Gavin before reaching up just under his ribs, giving something a squeeze that was met with a crow of pain.

'This is the liver. Very important, it filters blood, detoxifies chemicals and metabolises drugs. That’s why you and Michael don’t die when you go out on your 'Lads Night' and get stupid drunk. But it’s easily replaced for such a vital organ. Did you know you can regrow your liver from just ten percent of the initial mass? The human body is so fascinating.'

He moved on without interrupting the liver any more. He didn’t want Gavin to bleed out before he had his fun. Shifting his hand, he fondled Gavin's stomach, laughing when he immediately turned green at the feeling.

'There’s the stomach. Surprisingly delicate in your case, considering your line of work. It’s a thick sack of muscle, lined with mucous that prevents the acid inside from digesting you from the inside out. The stomach acid is actually more dangerous than hydrochloric acid, did you know? Something that could dissolve a person, only protected from such a painful death by a mucous layer.' He smiled as if he’d told a joke. 

'Of course, Geoff only lets me dissolve people alive when they’ve touched children. You know his rule, never touch the children. Keep them innocent while we can. No one else will look out for them in this city, we both know that. But anyway.' He looked up at Gavin and frowned.

The Golden Boy was pale and sweating, eyes glazed and unfocused. He’d have to cut this lesson shorter than he wanted, which was a shame. He'd barely got through any of the organs in the abdomen, let alone the ones in the chest or the more interesting muscles. Still. This had been fun, to be able to work on a crew member, something that was expressly forbidden, especially to him, given his area of expertise. He briefly wondered if Gavin would ever come near him again after this but chased the thought away. Time heals all wounds, and to an Immortal time was nothing.

'Well, this has been lots of fun, Gavin,' Ryan said almost merrily as he put his dirtied equipment away for sterilisation later, wiping his hands mostly clean on a cloth.

'There's only one thing left to ask really,' he commented, leaning over Gavin to fill his field of view, waiting until the eyes came back into focus and he was sure his statement had been registered.

'Does this count as friendly fire?' asked Ryan with a shit-eating grin, pulling a small gun out from under the blood stained table and pressing the barrel to Gavin's forehead. The Brit didn’t even get the chance to react before Ryan pulled the trigger and splattered his brain into the table padding.

Stepping back, Ryan looked over the mess in his room. At least this time he wouldn’t have to worry about disposing of the body. Stretching out, he pulled off his blood stained shirt and the towel he wiped everything down with. Time for a shower and a diet coke before he got to cleaning.

~~~

Gavin jerked awake with a startled squawk, hands flying to his stomach, half expecting his guts to be hanging out. But no. He was fine. Body unharmed, redressed and left in a comfortable position on his own couch, exactly how he usually respawned.

‘I hope you don’t mind I broke in to check on you,' Ryan said, causing Gavin to yelp in shock and topple off the couch. He jerked upright, staring at the mercenary sat across the room in his (favourite) armchair, with his stupid black skull mask back in place.

'What the hell, Ryan?! After all that, you just shoot me?!'

'The destination doesn’t matter, it’s how you get there.'

'Bullshit!'

'Maybe. But you seem to be mentally fine.' Ryan stood. 'I suppose I'll see you back at work. Anything else before I go?'

Gavin shifted for a moment, staring at the floor. 'I...... Maybe we could do it again some time?'

Ryan blinked, fixing Gavin with a hard stare. 'Perhaps you aren’t as mentally sound as I thought.'

Flushing a dark red, Gavin spluttered indignantly. 'You don’t have to be a tosser, just say no!'

'I didn’t say no.' And with that, Ryan slipped out of the window, leaving a dumbfounded Gavin on the floor.  



End file.
